Stereoscopic playback devices, e.g., display devices which are capable of displaying different images to a users left and right eyes, are growing in popularity. Unfortunately, there is limited stereoscopic content available for such devices at the present time. This is due, in part to the difficulty with existing camera systems and rigs to capture images that are well suited for presentation as stereoscopic images with a realistic 3D effect.
Rather than capture two images in parallel, e.g., a left and right eye image, many systems have take the approach of capturing images using multiple cameras each oriented in a different direction and then using computations to simulate 3D effects and generate left and right eye images for playback. In such cases left and right eye images, e.g., stereoscopic image pairs, are not captured in parallel but rather generated through relatively complicated computational processing intended to generate image pairs.
While the computational approach to generating stereoscopic image content from images captured by cameras facing different directions can have some advantages in that the camera rig need not simulate the human visual system and/or in terms of the number of cameras needed the computational processing associated with such an approach has certain disadvantages in terms of the quality of the 3D content which is generated and is also not well suited for real time content capture and streaming to playback devices given the number and time involved with generating pairs of left and right eye images from the content captured by cameras which are arranged in a configuration very different from the spacing and/or orientation of a normal human's pair of eyes.
In addition to capturing stereoscopic image content, depth measurements are also desirable so that an accurate model of an environment can be generated and used during playback. While static environmental models may be used it would be highly desirable if environmental measurements, e.g., depth measurements relative to a camera position, could be made during an event and used to generate or update an environmental module.
It would be desirable if environmental measurements could be made during an event from the same rig used to capture stereoscopic camera images so that the measurement accurately reflect distances, e.g., depths.
In view of the above, it should be appreciated that there is a need for improved methods and/or apparatus for capturing and/or processing stereoscopic image content. In addition there is a need for methods and/or apparatus for capturing environmental information, e.g., depth information, which can be used for generating or updating a 3D model of an environment. It should be appreciated that to be beneficial or desirable a device need not support both stereoscopic image capture and environmental measurements but it would be desirable if in at least some embodiments a camera rig could capture stereoscopic image content as well as environmental measurement information.